Are you making this deadly grant writing mistake?
Too many nonprofits are guilty of making this deadly grant writing mistake. It’s such a serious error that it can cause nonprofits to miss out on critical funding year after year. Ultimately, this mistake can be deadly to the long term success of your grant writing efforts.
Luckily, it’s a simple grant writing mistake that has a simple solution. And fixing it may mean the difference between your nonprofit thriving or closing its doors.
The grant writing mistake is this: failing to follow up with a grantmaker after receiving a rejection. That’s because in grant writing, you will receive far more rejections than acceptances. Often, that’s simply due to high competition and limited funding.
Inexperienced grant writers will either ignore a rejection and reapply with the same application for the next grant cycle. Or, they’ll stop applying to that funder altogether. Both approaches constitutes a severe grant writing mistake.
The simple solution to this grant writing mistake is to simply call or email the funder and ask why the application was rejected. After that, they can pass along some notes or comments from their review session. It may be that you need to refocus your narrative just a bit. Or, come back next time with a stronger evaluation section. Then, you can find out what the issue is, fix it, and reapply.
Therefore, making this contact and gathering this information will strengthen your application. Also, it may endear you to the funder. They’ll understand you are serious and conscientious. These are two important aspects that may put you slightly above the competition. It may be just far enough above to win that funding. Finally, you’ve avoided making that critical error.
Having trouble dealing with rejection? Check out this article on how to turn a grant rejection into an acceptance.
Interested in learning more about our grant writing services? Contact us.
Sean M. Kirby
03.04.2017 at 13:27Nice article, Megan! I especially like how you explain the way that simply reaching out to a grantmaker following a rejection can improve their perception of a nonprofit.
I actually just wrote a similar article for my blog. Feel free to check it out, and let me know if you think it needs anything else mentioned!
Richard Dunn
17.01.2019 at 11:06These days I think picking up a phone is difficult for many. It’s either a text or email, and nothing more.